Report On The Role And Tasks Of The Trade Unions
Delivered On January 23 At A Meeting Of The Communist Group Of The
Congress

The morbid character of the question of the role
and tasks of the trade unions is due to the fact that it took the
form of a factional struggle much too soon. This vast, boundless
question should not have been taken up in such haste, as it was
done here, and I put the chief blame on Comrade Trotsky for all
this fumbling haste and precipitation. All of us have had occasion
to submit inadequately prepared theses to the Central Committee
and this is bound to go on because all our work is being done in a
rush. This is not a big mistake, for all of us have had to act in
haste. Taken by itself, it is a common mistake and is unavoidable
because of the extremely difficult objective conditions. All the
more reason, therefore, to treat factional, controversial issues
with the utmost caution; for in such matters even not very
hot-headed persons—something, I’m afraid, I cannot say
about my opponent—may all too easily fall into this
error. To illustrate my point, and to proceed at once to the heart
of the matter, let me read you the chief of Trotsky’s
theses.

In his pamphlet, towards the end of thesis No. 12, he writes:

“We observe the fact that as economic tasks move into the
foreground, many trade unionists take an ever more aggressive
and uncompromising stand against the prospect of
’coalescence’ and the practical conclusions that
follow from it. Among them we find Comrades Tomsky and
Lozovsky.

“What is more, many trade unionists, balking at the new
tasks and methods, tend to cultivate in their midst a spirit of
corporative exclusiveness and hostility for the new men who are
being drawn into the given branch of the economy, thereby
actually fostering the survivals of craft-unionism among the
organized workers.”

I could quote many similar passages from Trotsky’s
pamphlet. I ask, by way of factional statement: Is it becoming for
such an influential person, such a prominent leader, to attack his
Party comrades in this way? I am sure that 99 per cent of the
comrades, excepting those involved in the quarrel, will say that
this should not be done.

I could well understand such a statement if Comrades Tomsky and
Lozovsky were guilty, or could be suspected of being guilty, of,
say, having flatly refused to sign the Brest Peace Treaty, or of
having flatly opposed the war. The revolutionary interest is
higher than formal democracy. But it is fundamentally wrong to
approach the subject in such haste at the present moment. It
won’t do at all. This point says that many trade unionists
tend to cultivate in their midst a spirit of hostility and
exclusiveness. What does that mean? What sort of talk is this? Is
it the right kind of language? Is it the right approach? I had
earlier said that I might succeed in acting as a
“buffer” and staying out of the discussion, because it
is harmful to fight with Trotsky—it does the Republic, the
Party, and all of us a lot of harm—but when this pamphlet
came out, I felt I had to speak up.

Trotsky writes that “many trade unionists tend to
cultivate a spirit of hostility for the new men”. How so? If
that is true, those who are doing so should be named. Since this
is not done, it is merely a shake-up, a bureaucratic approach to
the business. Even if there is a spirit of hostility for the new
men, one should not say a thing like that. Trotsky accuses
Lozovsky and Tomsky of bureaucratic practices. I would say the
reverse is true. It is no use reading any further because the
approach has spoiled everything; he has poured a spoonful of tar
into the honey, and no matter how much honey he may add now, the
whole is already spoiled.

Whose fault is it that many trade unionists tend to cultivate a
spirit of hostility for the new men? Of course, a bufferite or a
Tsektranite will say it is the trade unionists’.

The fact is that in this case idle fancy and invention have
accumulated like the snowdrifts in the storm outside. But,
comrades, we must sort things out and get at the substance. And it
is that a spirit of hostility has been aroused among the masses by
a number of tactless actions. My opponent asserts that certain
people have been cultivating a spirit of hostility. This shows
that the question is seen in the wrong light. We must sort things
out. The All-Russia Conference was held in November, and that is
where the “shake-up” catchword was launched. Trotsky
was wrong in uttering it. Politically it is clear that such an
approach will cause a split and bring down the dictatorship of the
proletariat.

We must understand that trade unions are not government
departments, like People’s Commissariats, but comprise the
whole organised proletariat; that they are a special type of
institution and cannot be approached in this way. And when there
arose this question of a wrong approach, latent with the danger of
a split, I said: “Don’t talk about any broad
discussion for the time being; go to the commission and examine
the matter carefully over there.” But the comrades said:
“No, we can’t do that; it is a violation of
democracy.” Comrade Bukharin went so far as to talk about
the “sacred slogan of workers’ democracy”. Those
are his very words. When I read that I nearly crossed
myself. (Laughter.) I insist that a mistake always has a
modest beginning and then grows up. Disagreements always start
from small things. A slight cut is commonplace, but if it festers,
it may result in a fatal illness. And this thing here is a
festering wound. In November, there was talk about a shake-up; by
December, it had become a big mistake.

The December Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee was
against us. The majority sided with Trotsky and carried Trotsky
and Bukharin’s resolution, which you must have read. But
even the C.C. members who did not sympathise with us had to admit
that the water transport workers had more right on their side than
Tsektran. That is a fact. When I ask what Tsektran’s fault
was, the answer is not that they had brought pressure to
bear—that goes to their credit—but that they had
allowed bureaucratic excesses.

But once you have realised that you had allowed excesses you
ought to rectify them, instead of arguing against
rectification. That is all there is to it. It will take decades to
overcome the evils of bureaucracy. It is a very difficult
struggle, and anyone who says we can rid ourselves of bureaucratic
practices overnight by adopting anti-bureaucratic platforms is
nothing but a quack with a bent for fine words. Bureaucratic
excesses must be rectified right away. We must detect and rectify
them without calling bad good, or black white. The workers and
peasants realise that they have still to learn the art of
government, but they are also very well aware that there are
bureaucratic excesses, and it is a double fault to refuse to
correct them. This must be done in good time, as the water
transport workers have pointed out, and not only when your
attention is called to it.

Even the best workers make mistakes. There are excellent
workers in Tsektran, and we shall appoint them, and correct their
bureaucratic excesses. Comrade Trotsky says that Comrades Tomsky
and Lozovsky—trade unionists both—are guilty of
cultivating in their midst a spirit of hostility for the new
men. But this is monstrous. Only someone in the lunatic fringe can
say a thing like that.

This haste leads to arguments, platforms and accusations, and
eventually creates the impression that everything is rotten.

You know when people fall out it only takes them a couple of
days to start abusing each other’s relatives down to the
tenth generation. You ask: “What are you quarrelling
over?” “Oh, his aunt was this, and his grandfather was
that.” “I don’t mean now; how did the whole
thing start?” It turns out that in the course of two days a
heap of disagreements has piled up.

Tsektran has allowed excesses in a number of cases, and these
were harmful and unnecessary bureaucratic excesses. People are
liable to allow excesses everywhere. There are departments with a
staff of 30,000 in Moscow alone. That is no joke. There’s
something to be corrected, there’s a wall to be
scaled. There must be no fear, no thought of causing offence or
dissension. To start a factional struggle and accuse Tomsky of
cultivating among the masses a spirit of hostility for the
Tsektranites is utterly to distort the facts, absolutely to spoil
all the work, and entirely to damage all relations with the trade
unions. But the trade unions embrace the whole proletariat. If
this thing is persisted in and voted on by platforms, it will lead
to the downfall of the Soviet power.

If the Party falls out with the trade unions, the fault lies
with the Party, and this spells certain doom for the Soviet
power. We have no other mainstay but the millions of proletarians,
who may not be class conscious, are often ignorant, backward and
illiterate, but who, being proletarians, follow their own
Party. For twenty years they have regarded this Party as their
own. Next comes a class which is not ours, which may side with us,
if we are wise and if we pursue a correct policy within our own
class. We have now reached the supreme moment of our revolution:
we have roused the proletarian masses and the masses of poor
peasants in the rural areas to give us their conscious support. No
revolution has ever done this before. There is no class that can
overthrow us: the majority of the proletarians and the rural poor
are behind us. Nothing can ruin us but our own mistakes. This
“but” is the whole point. If we cause a split, for
which we are to blame, everything will collapse because the trade
unions are not only an official institution, but also the source
of all our power. They are the class which the economics of
capitalism has converted into the economic amalgamator, and which
through its industry brings together millions of scattered
peasants. That is why one proletarian has more strength than 200
peasants.

That is just why Trotsky’s whole approach is wrong. I
could have analysed any one of his theses, but it would take me
hours, and you would all be bored to death. Every thesis reveals
the same thoroughly wrong approach: “Many trade unionists
tend to cultivate a spirit of hostility.” There is a spirit
of hostility for us among the trade union rank and file because of
our mistakes, and the bureaucratic practices up on top, including
myself, because it was I who appointed Glavpolitput. What is to be
done? Are things to be set right? We must correct Tsektran’s
excesses, once we realise that we are a solid workers’
party, with a firm footing, and a head on its shoulders. We are
not renouncing either the method of appointment, or the
dictatorship. This will not be tolerated by workers with a twenty
years’ schooling in Russia. If we condone this mistakes we
shall surely be brought down. It is a mistake, and that is the
root of the matter.

Trotsky says Lozovsky and Tomsky are balking at the new
tasks. To prove this will put a new face on the matter. What are
the new tasks?

Here we are told: “production atmosphere”,
“industrial democracy” and “role in
production”. I said, at the very outset, in the December 30
discussion, that that was nothing but words, which the workers did
not understand, and that it was all part of the task of production
propaganda. We are not renouncing the dictatorship, or one-man
management; these remain, I will support them, but I refuse to
defend excesses and stupidity. “Production atmosphere”
is a funny phrase that will make the workers laugh. Saying it more
simply and clearly is all part of production propaganda. But a
special institution has been set up for the purpose.

About enhancing the role of the trade unions in production, I
replied on December 30 and in the press, and said that we have
Comrade Rudzutak’s resolution, which was adopted at the
Conference on November 5. Comrades Trotsky and Bukharin said that
Tsektran had drafted this resolution. Although this has been
refuted, let me ask: if they had drafted it, who, in that case, is
kicking? The trade unions adopted it and Tsektran drafted it. Well
and good. There’s no point, therefore, in quarrelling like
children and raising factional disagreements. Has Comrade Trotsky
brought up any new tasks? No, he hasn’t. The fact is that
his new points are all worse than the old ones. Comrade Trotsky is
campaigning to get the Party to condemn those who are balking at
new tasks, and Tomsky and Lozovsky have been named as the greatest
sinners.

Rudzutak’s resolution is couched in clearer and simpler
language, and has nothing in it like “production
atmosphere” or “industrial democracy”. It says
clearly that every trade union member must be aware of the vital
necessity of increasing productivity in the country. It is put in
simple and intelligible language. All this is stated better than
in Trotsky’s theses, and more fully, because bonuses in kind
and disciplinary courts have been added. Without the latter, all
this talk of getting the transport system going and improving
things is humbug. Let us set up commissions and disciplinary
courts. In this matter Tsektran has allowed excesses. We propose
calling a spade a spade: it is no use covering up excesses with
new tasks; they must be corrected. We have no intention of
renouncing coercion. No sober-minded worker would go so far as to
say that we could now dispense with coercion, or that we could
dissolve the trade unions, or let them have the whole of
industry. I can imagine Comrade Shlyapnikov blurting out a thing
like that.

In the whole of his speech there is one excellent passage on
the experience of the Sormovo Works, where, he said, absenteeism
was reduced by 30 per cent. This is said to be true. But I am a
suspicious sort, I suggest that a commission be sent there to
investigate and make a comparison of Nizhni-Novgorod and
Petrograd. There is no need to have a meeting about this: it can
all be done in commission. Trotsky says that there is an attempt
to prevent coalescence, but that is nonsense. He says we must go
forward. Indeed, if the engine is good; but if it isn’t, we
must put it into reverse. The Party will benefit from this,
because we must study experience.

Production is at a standstill, but some people have been busy
producing bad theses. This question requires study and
experience. You are trade unionists and miners who are doing their
job. Now since you have taken up this question, you must inquire,
demand figures, verify them over and over again—don’t
take any statements for granted—and when you have done that,
let us know the result. If it is good, then go on; if it is bad,
go back. This means work, not talk. All this should have been done
at Party meetings.

At the Eighth Congress of Soviets, I said that we ought to have
less politics. When I said that I thought we would have no more
political mistakes, but here we are, three years after the Soviet
revolution, talking about syndicalism. This is a shame. If I had
been told six months ago that I would be writing about
syndicalism, I would have said that I preferred to write about the
Donbas. Now we are being distracted, and the Party is being
dragged back. A small mistake is growing into a big one. That is
where Comrade Shlyapnikov comes in. Point 16 of Comrade
Trotsky’s theses gives a correct definition of
Shlyapnikov’s mistake.

In an effort to act the buffer, Bukharin clutched at
Shlyapnikov, but it would have been better for him to clutch at a
straw. He promises the unions mandatory nominations, which means
they are to have the final say in appointments. But that is
exactly what Shlyapnikov is saying. Marxists have been combating
syndicalism all over the world. We have been fighting in the Party
for over twenty years, and we have given the workers visual proof
that the Party is a special kind of thing which needs
forward-looking men prepared for sacrifice; that it does make
mistakes, but corrects them; that it guides and selects men who
know the way and the obstacles before us. It does not deceive the
workers. It never makes promises that cannot be kept. And if you
skip the trade unions you will make a hash of everything we have
achieved over the past three years. Comrade Bukharin, with whom I
discussed this mistake, said. “Comrade Lenin, you are
picking on us.”

I take mandatory nominations to mean that they will be made
under the direction of the Party’s Central Committee. But in
that case, what are the rights we are giving them? There will then
be no chance of having a bloc. The workers and the peasants are
two distinct classes. Let us talk about vesting the rights in the
trade unions when electricity has spread over the whole
country—if we manage to achieve this in twenty years it will
be incredibly quick work, for it cannot be done quickly. To talk
about it before then will be deceiving the workers. The
dictatorship of the proletariat is the most stable thing in the
world because it has won confidence by its deeds, and because the
Party took great care to prevent diffusion.

What does that mean?

Does every worker know how to run the state? People working in
the practical sphere know that this is not true, that millions of
our organised workers are going through what we always said the
trade unions were, namely, a school of communism and
administration. When they have attended this school for a number
of years they will have learned to administer, but the going is
slow. We have not even abolished illiteracy. We know that workers
in touch with peasants are liable to fall for non-proletarian
slogans. How many of the workers have been engaged in government?
A few thousand throughout Russia and no more. If we say that it is
not the Party but the trade unions that put up the candidates and
administrate, it may sound very democratic and might help us to
catch a few votes, but not for long. It will be fatal for the
dictatorship of the proletariat.

Read the decision of the Second Congress of the Comintern. [2] Its resolutions and decisions have
gone round the world. The recent Socialist Congress in France
revealed that we have won a majority in a country where chauvinism
is most virulent; we have split the Party and ejected the corrupt
leaders, and we did this in opposition to the syndicalists.[3] And all the best workers and leaders
there have adopted our theory. Even
syndicalists—revolutionary syndicalists—are siding
with us all over the world. I myself have met American
syndicalists who, after a visit to this country, say:
“Indeed, you cannot lead the proletariat without a
Party.” You all know that this is a fact. And it is quite
improper for the proletariat to rush into the arms of syndicalism
and talk about mandatory nominations to “all-Russia
producers’ congresses”. This is dangerous and
jeopardizes the Party’s guiding role. Only a very small
percentage of the workers in the country are now organised. The
majority of the peasants will follow the Party because its policy
is correct, and because, during the Brest peace ordeal, it was
capable of making temporary sacrifices and retreats, which was the
right thing to do. Are we to throw all this away? Was it all a
windfall? No, it was all won by the Party in decades of hard
work. Everybody believes the word of the Bolsheviks, who have had
twenty years of Party training.

To govern you need an army of steeled revolutionary
Communists. We have it, and it is called the Party. All this
syndicalist nonsense about mandatory nominations of producers must
go into the wastepaper basket. To proceed on those lines would
mean thrusting the Party aside and making the dictatorship of the
proletariat in Russia impossible. This is the view I believe it to
be my Party duty to put to you. It is, in my opinion, enunciated
in the form of practical propositions in the platform called
Draft Decision of the Tenth Congress of the R.C.P. and
signed by Lenin, Zinoviev, Tomsky, Rudzutak, Kalinin, Kamenev,
Lozovsky, Petrovsky, Sergeyev and Stalin. Lozovsky, who is not a
member of the Central Committee, was included because he was on
the trade union commission from which Shlyapnikov and Lutovinov,
unfortunately, resigned. It is up to the workers to decide whether
Shlyapnikov was right in resigning, and he will be censured, if he
was wrong. I am convinced that all class-conscious workers will
accept this platform and that the present disagreements in our
Party will be confined to fever at the top. I am sure the workers
will put them right, remain at their posts, maintain Party
discipline and join in an efficient but careful drive to increase
production and secure full victory for our cause. (Prolonged
applause.)

Speech Closing The Discussion Delivered At A
Meeting Of The Communist Group Of The Congress January 24

Comrades, I should like to begin by speaking about
who is trying to intimidate whom, and about Comrade Shlyapnikov,
who has tried hard to scare us. Everyone here said Lenin was
trying to raise the bogey of syndicalism. This is ridiculous
because the very idea of using syndicalism as a bogey is
ridiculous. I think we ought to start with our programmes, by
reading the Programme of the Communist Party to see what it
says. Comrades Trotsky and Shlyapnikov referred to the same
passage which happens to be its Paragraph 5. Let me read it to you
in full:

“5. The organisational apparatus of socialised industry
should rely chiefly on the trade unions, which must to an ever
increasing degree divest themselves of the narrow craft-union
spirit and become large industrial associations, embracing the
majority, and eventually all of the workers in the given branch
of industry.”

Comrade Shlyapnikov quoted this passage in his speech. But, if
the figures were correct, those who were managing the
organisations constituted 60 per cent, and these consisted of
workers. Furthermore, when reference is made to the Programme,
this should be done properly, bearing in mind that Party members
know it thoroughly, and do not confine themselves to reading one
extract, as Trotsky and Shlyapnikov have done. Comrades, there is
much history to show that the workers cannot organise otherwise
than by industries. That is why the idea of industrial unionism
has been adopted all over the world. That is for the time being,
of course. There is talk about the need to cast off the narrow
craft-union spirit. I ask you, has this been done to, say, a
tenth? Of course, not, is the sincere answer. Why forget this?

Who is it who says to the unions: “You have not yet
divested yourselves of the narrow craft-union spirit, and must get
on with it”? It is the R.C.P. which does this in its
Programme. Read it. To depart from this is to abandon the
Programme for syndicalism. Despite the hints at Lenin’s
“intimidation”, the Programme is still there. You
depart from it by quoting the first part and forgetting the
second. In which direction? Towards syndicalism. Let me read
further:

“The trade unions being, on the strength of
the laws of the Soviet Republic and established practice,
participants in all the local and central organs of industrial
management, should eventually arrive at a de facto
concentration in their hands of the whole administration of the
whole national economy, as a single economic entity.”

Everyone makes references to this paragraph. What does it say?
Something that is absolutely indisputable: “should
eventually arrive.” It does not say that they are
arriving. It does not contain the exaggeration which, once made,
reduces the whole to an absurdity. It says, “should
eventually arrive”. Arrive where? At a de facto
concentration and administration. When are you due to arrive at
this point? This calls for education, and it must be so organised
as to teach everyone the art of administration. Now can you say,
with a clear conscience, that the trade unions are able to fill
any number of executive posts with suitable men at any time? After
all, it is not six million, but sixty thousand or, say, a hundred
thousand men that you need to fill all the executive posts. Can
they nominate this number? No, they cannot—not yet—as
anyone will say who is not chasing after formulas and theses and
is not misled by the loudest voices. Years of educational work lie
ahead for the Party, ranging from the abolition of illiteracy to
the whole round of Party work in the trade unions. An enormous
amount of work must be done in the trade unions to achieve this
properly. This is exactly what it- says: “should eventually
arrive at a de facto concentration in their hands of the
whole administration of the whole national economy”. It does
not say branches of industry, as Trotsky does in his theses. One
of his first theses quotes the Programme correctly, but another
one says: organisation of industry. I’m afraid that is no
way to quote. When you are writing some theses and you want to
quote the Programme, you must read it to the end. Anyone who takes
the trouble to read this Paragraph 5 right through and give it ten
minutes’ thought will see that Shlyapnikov has departed from
the Programme, and that Trotsky has leaped over it. Let’s
read Paragraph 5 to the end:

“The trade unions, ensuring in this way
indissoluble ties between the central state administration, the
national economy and the broad masses of working people, should
draw the latter into direct economic management on the widest
possible scale. At the same time, the participation of the trade
unions in economic management and their activity in drawing the
broad masses into this work are the principal means of combating
the bureaucratisation of the economic apparatus of the Soviet
power and making possible the establishment of truly popular
control over the results of production.”

You find that you must first achieve de facto
concentration. But what are you ensuring now? First, there are the
ties within the central state administration. This is a huge
machine. You have not yet taught us to master it. And so, you must
ensure ties between the central state administration—that
’s one; national economy—that’s two; and the
masses—that’s three. Have we got those ties? Are the
trade unions capable of administration? Anybody over thirty years
of age with some little practical experience of Soviet
organisation will laugh at this. Read the following:

“At the same time, the participation of the
trade unions in economic management and their activity in drawing
the broad masses into this work are the principal means of
combating the bureaucratisation of the economic apparatus of the
Soviet power and making possible the establishment of truly
popular control over the results of production.”

First, there is need to create ties between the central state
organisations. We have no intention of concealing this malaise,
and our Programme says: ensure ties with the masses, and ensure
the participation of the trade unions in economic
management. There are no loud words in this. When you have done
that in such a way as to reduce absenteeism by, say, 3 per
cent—let alone 30—we shall say: you have done a fine
job. Our present Programme says: “. . . the participation of
the trade unions in economic management and their activity in
drawing the broad masses into this work. . . .” It does not
contain a single promise or a single loud word; nor does it say
anything about your doing the electing. It does not resort to
demagogy, but says that there is an ignorant, backward mass, that
there are trade unions, which are so strong that they are leading
the whole of the peasantry, and which themselves follow the lead
of the Party, with a twenty-year schooling in the fight against
tsarism. No country has gone through what Russia has, and that is
the secret of our strength. Why is this regarded as a miracle?
Because in a peasant country, only the trade unions can provide
the economic bonds to unite millions of scattered farms, if this
mass of six million has faith in its Party, and continues to
follow it as it had hitherto. That is the secret of our strength,
and the way it works is a political question. How can a minority
govern a huge peasant country, and why are we so composed? After
our three years’ experience, there is no external or
internal force that can break us. Provided we do not make any
extra stupid mistakes leading to splits, we shall retain our
positions; otherwise everything will go to the dogs. That is why,
when Comrade Shlyapnikov says in his platform:
“The All-Russia Congress of Producers shall
elect a body to administer the whole national economy,”
I say: read the whole of Paragraph 5 of our Programme, which I
have read out to you, and you will see that there is no attempt at
intimidation either on Lenin’s or anyone else’s
part.

Shlyapnikov concluded his speech by saying: “We must
eliminate bureaucratic methods in government and the national
economy.” I say this is demagogy. We have had this question
of bureaucratic practices on the agenda since last July. After the
Ninth Congress of the R.C.P. last July, Preobrazhensky also asked:
Are we not suffering from bureaucratic excesses? Watch out! In
August, the Central Committee endorsed Zinoviev’s letter:
Combat the evils of bureaucracy. The Party Conference met in
September, and endorsed it. So, after all, it was not Lenin who
invented some new path, as Trotsky says, but the Party which said:
“Watch out: there’s a new malaise.”
Preobrazhensky raised this question in July; we had
Zinoviev’s letter in August; there was the Party Conference
in September and we had a long report on bureaucratic practices at
the Congress of Soviets in December. The malaise is there. In our
1919 Programme we wrote that bureaucratic practices
existed. Whoever comes out and demands a stop to bureaucratic
practices is a demagogue. When you are called upon to “put a
stop to bureaucratic practices”, it is demagogy. It is
nonsense. We shall be fighting the evils of bureaucracy for many
years to come, and whoever thinks otherwise is playing demagogue
and cheating, because overcoming the evils of bureaucracy requires
hundreds of measures, wholesale literacy, culture and
participation in the activity of the Workers’ and
Peasants’ Inspection.[4] Shlyapnikov has been
People’s Commissar for Labour and People’s Commissar
for Trade and Industry. Has he put a stop to bureaucratic
practices? Kiselyov has been on the Central Board of the Textile
Industry. Has he put a stop to the evils of
bureaucracy?

Let me say this once again: We shall have grown up when all our
congresses resolve themselves into sections and marshal the facts
about coalescence among the millers and the Donbas miners. But
writing a string of useless platforms shows up our poor economic
leadership. I repeat that nothing can break us, neither external
nor internal forces, if we do not lead things up to a split. I say
that Tsektran is more than a bludgeon, but exaggerating this has
led up to a split. Anyone can be guilty of an excess of
bureaucratic practices, and the Central Committee is aware of it,
and is responsible for it. In this respect, Comrade
Trotsky’s mistake lies in that he drew up his theses in the
wrong spirit. They are all couched in terms of a shake-up, and
they have all led to a split in the union. It is not a matter of
giving Trotsky bad marks—we are not schoolchildren and have
no use for marks—but we must say that his theses are wrong
in content and must therefore be rejected.

Endnotes

[1]
The Congress was held in Moscow’s Trade Union House from
January 25 to February 2, 1921. It was attended by 341 delegates,
of whom 295 had voice and vote, and 46, voice only. They
represented more than 332,000 members of the Miners’ Trade
Union. Lenin and Kalinin were Honorary Chairmen.

The items on its agenda were: report of the
Miners’ Trade Union Central Committee; reports of the Mining
Council and its departments; fuel supply problems; tasks of the
trade union; organisation of production; wage rates; organisation;
cultural and educational work; labour safety measures;
international ties; concessions, and election of a new Trade Union
Central Committee. The Congress decided to issue an appeal for
unity to the organised workers of all countries.

Prior to the Congress, on January 22-24, the
R.C.P.(B.) group had four meetings to discuss the trade
unions’ role and tasks, which were addressed by Lenin,
Trotsky and Shlyapnikov. The absolute majority of the group
supported Lenin’s platform, which won 137 votes;
Shlyapnikov’s received 61, and Trotsky’s, 8.

The Congress helped to solve the fuel crisis
and work out production programmes for the mining industry.

[2]The reference is to the resolution of the
Second Congress of the Communist International, “On the Role
of the Communist Party in the Proletarian Revolution”. See
Vtoroi kongress Kominterna (Second Congress of the
Communist International, Moscow, 1934, pp. 640-46).

[3]
The reference is to the Eighteenth Congress of the French
Socialist Party in Tours, December 25-30, 1920. It was attended by
285 delegates with 4,575 mandates. The main question on the agenda
was the Party’s affiliation to the Communist
International. The issue was a foregone conclusion because at the
federation congresses held before the national Congress, an
absolute majority had voted for immediate entry into the Third
International on the basis of the 21 conditions. Still there was a
bitter struggle at the Congress between supporters of affiliation
(Paul Vaillant Couturier, Marcel Cachin, Daniel Renoult) and its
opponents (Leon Blum, Jean Longuet, Marcel Sembat and
others). Clara Zetkin, who had come to the Congress in spite of
the French Government’s ban and police harassment, delivered
a brilliant speech and conveyed greetings on behalf of the
Communist International.

After a four-day debate, the delegates voted
for affiliation by 3,208 mandates, or more than 70 per cent.

The majority set up the Communist Party of
France, which was finally formed in May 1921. The minority, led by
Leon Blum, aimed at splitting the workers’ movement, and
walked out of the Congress, forming their own reformist party,
which retained the old name of the French Socialist Party.

[4]
The Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection (Rabkrin) was
set up in February 1920 on Lenin’s initiative, on the basis
of the reorganised People’s Commissariat for State Control
which had been formed in the early months of the Soviet
power.

Lenin attached great importance to control and
verification from top to bottom. He worked out in detail the
principles of organising control in the Soviet state, kept an eye
on Rabkrin’s activity, criticised its shortcomings and did
his best to make it more efficient. In his last articles,
“How We Should Reorganise the Workers’ and
Peasants’ Inspection” and “Better Fewer but
Better”, Lenin outlined a plan for reorganising Rabkrin. To
merge Party and state control and to enlist more workers and
peasants in its activity were the basic principles of
Lenin’s plan, and this he regarded as the source of the
Party’s and the state’s inexhaustible strength. On
Lenin’s instructions, the Party’s Twelfth Congress set
up a joint organ, the Central Control Commission and the
Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, to exercise Party
and state control.

During Stalin’s personality cult, these
principles were violated, and Lenin’s system of control was
substituted by a bureaucratic apparatus. In 1934, Stalin secured a
decision to set up two control centres—the Central
Committee’s Party Control Commission, and the
Government’s Soviet Control Commission. The People’s
Commissariat for State Control of the U.S.S.R. was set up in 1940;
it was reorganised into the Ministry for State Control in 1946,
and later, into the Commission for State Control. Pursuant to a
decision of the Twenty-Second Congress, which stressed the
importance of Party, state and mass control, the November 1962
Central Committee Plenary Meeting deemed it necessary to
reorganise the system of control on Leninist principles. The Party
and State Control Committee of the C.C. of the C.P.S.U. and the
Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. was set up under a decision
of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U., the Presidium of the
Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers on November 27,
1962.